External brain

ChristinaSkaskiw

ChristinaSkaskiw

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I’ve been on quite a GTD webinar “bender” lately. I fell off the wagon a bit and now have the bandwidth to get myself back on. The latest webinar I listened through was David talking about the external brain and it triggered some thinking. There are things our brain can do well and other things it does not do so well. It’s good at pattern recognition and associative thinking. It sees something it recognizes and a flood of related memories comes forth. My thinking was that the external brain should support with the things it does not do so well, like recalling information or being reminded of things that are not immediately in front of us, and it should support in a way that makes it easy for the internal brain to engage.

Obvious things: reminders of all sorts like appointments (calendar), things to do (projects and actions), when to do them (calendar/contexts), how to do them (checklists), triggers to help with associations (checklists), and reference information (contacts, a-z, software for specific and/or general things,...).

Also helpful are alerts (which is a more active type of reminder) that beeps at pre-defined time or even when you’re in a certain location.

How to fashion this external brain so it makes it easy for the brain to engage should build on our associative and pattern recognition abilities, but not over-tax them by only providing the slimmest clues. The “cognitive gap” should be minimal, so that when we’re tired it’s still a very clear message from our past selves. As David would say, the thinking should already be done. Information should also be simple to retrieve, put in places where we are when we want it and where we easily associate with it being.

And it would be great if it could also help with motivation to do the things we decided to do. One way is for the to-do to be very concrete and already thought out at the runway level, as GTD teaches. Another would be to add the reason why we decided to do something, which is a tip I heard on NPR podcast “Hidden brain”.

Any other insights on this topic?
 
I love Mind Manager. Just starting a new project -- initial step was to move a couple screens of information into a mind map (non-linear graphical outline). I can see needs and several categories of ways to meet those needs, currently as deep as four levels of hierarchy. Basically, once you put the "stuff" into a mind map, the associations and patterns jump right off the page at you -- you see things immediately that may never surface if you just read the standard linear text.
 
What works for each person to handle the external data reference will vary wildly. I must read and write stuff to remember it. I don't do well with graphical representations of data or information at all.

My go to tools are of course my list manager, Omnifocus and my reference manager, DEVONThink.

Other tools are pulled in for specific needs.

I come back to attempting to use mind mapping tools, whether on paper free form, or using one of any of the hundreds of apps that do mind maps probably once every couple of years. It never works for me and every time I find them messy and difficult to handle. The closest I come to is using Scrivener, where I can type in each separate thought, see them on the corkboard and then rearrange them linearly. I actually do my best free form planning in Scrivener and have used it to plan projects that are very complex.

Another tool I really like is Aeon Timeline. I have used full blown project planning tools that include timelines and dependencies but Aeon timeline is much more free form. It also ties in really well with Scrivener and since that is the tool I use for more complex projects it works well.

For example we've got some major farm reconfiguration stuff going on now. I used Scrivener to collect the thoughts and ideas and then sort according to project and resources needed. Then I used Aeon Timeline to iron out what has to be done when and in what order so we use our equipment operator most efficiently. Things like all 3 of these projects need the backhoe and bobcat person and a dump truck to haul rocks and gravel. So I planned them so we can do all that work at once. Now all the actual projects are in Omnifocus with waiting for actions at appropriate points and all the drawings and support information are in either regular files or DEVONThink. Nothing graphical, everything is written down and in a fairly straight line form.
 
I like to use mind mapping for studies, but then with pen and paper, not software tools. I find them too restrictive for that. I do use software mind maps for certain checklists, like packing, because of how they group things. Not all groups are relevant for all kinds of trips, so it’s easy to just consider the relevant branches. I also have my areas of focus on a software mind map, which makes it easy to see what I consider part of each area, yet still provide the overview.

So, yes, thanks for bringing up mind mapping, as they do help with reducing the cognitive gap, and it did remind me of having heard something about the brain also being really good at categorizing. May even have been a David Allen In Conversation.

For planning, I find post-its are my favorite tool.
 
ChristinaSkaskiw said:
For planning, I find post-its are my favorite tool.
Click to expand...

Good one! I have used this for group planning -- get a big wall, brainstorm individually onto post-its, put the post-its on the wall, and, as a group, categorize by moving them around appropriately -- which in turn generates more post-its. And, on at least one occasion, I have kept those post-its up on a wall for the duration of the project, and, as various subject matter experts wandered into and out of my office, encouraged them to make their own tweaks to my collection :)
 
I used to use personal brain... then I started putting docs in it.... which replicated what I was doing in Evernote. So im back to paper and pencil
 
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